Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch
by L.M.Lewis
Summary: He dropped the leash again.


Disclaimer: These characters are not mine and I make no profit from them.

**Author's Note: **This fortnight's episode is "The Black Widow", in which Hardcastle finally gets a chance to pull out one of his vaunted files—the one concerning Tina Gray, girlfriend to a string of now-dead shady characters. Mark falls for a photo of her and the guys wager for the chance to go point on this mission—betting it all on the outcome of a down-and-dirty game of basketball.

Mark wins, of course. After he's iced all the sprains and bruises, he uses some of Hardcastle's background info to try for a chance meeting with Gray at the gala opening of an art exhibit. Things take an unexpected turn when Gray and her paramour chauffeur are kidnapped by her current boyfriend's goons. Mark takes off in pursuit; Hardcastle is left fuming at the curb.

Mark eludes additional goons and uses one of Hardcastle's guns, stashed in the Coyote, to rescue the damsel from her mobster boyfriend. Naturally, all this gallantry takes time, but eventually Mark returns to Gull's Way (sans damsel). He encounters an irate Hardcastle, who's not happy to be admitting he's mostly angry because he was worried.

So, how'd he spend his afternoon of waiting for the prodigal to finally show up?

**Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch**

by L.M. Lewis

His first thought, as he watched the Coyote peel off around the curb with a screech of tires, was that he was gonna kill the kid. This only held for a fraction of a second as another too-ready sedan whipped by, taking the same sharp turn.

There hadn't been a chance for him to get a license number—or even a clear notion of the make and model—but there'd been plenty of time, after the dust has settled, to realize that the goons who'd snatched Tina Gray had back-up. McCormick had already been outnumbered at least three to one; now there was another car to contend with.

The judge got some frustrated cussing out of his system—just a second or two. No one else in the vicinity seemed unduly alarmed by what had just happened, and the street scene had returned to its normal level of bustle. He looked around hastily—no phone in sight. He turned and headed back toward the gallery, almost immediately encountering an anxious-looking man in a dark suit.

"What happened? Did you see it?" The man shot quick, nervous glances around. "They said someone was abducted." He had a name-tag. It read "Eberling", and below that the insignia of the gallery preceded the words "Executive Director".

There'd be a phone in his office, and the quickest way to that would be a précis about the kidnapping. Hardcastle opened his mouth to explain and then felt himself freeze.

He hadn't gotten a proper look at either of the other two vehicles, and the men he'd seen had been nondescript--just muscle types. The only guy and car he _could_ describe would be McCormick and his own unique firecracker. That'd be what the APB would settle on, even if he could reach Stanton or Harper quickly enough.

The Coyote would be spotted, if the call went out soon enough and anybody was paying attention. What then? They'd pull it over—or try to, at any rate. Hardcastle already knew his Tonto could be pretty single-minded when in pursuit mode. The chances were good that he'd ignore any requests to cease and desist.

After that it'd be a short decent into _him_ being the object of the cops' attentions—a high-speed chase on city streets. And handicapping McCormick like that would only increase the odds of the goons getting away, not to mention making for yet another awkward incident to explain in his report to the parole board. He vaguely thought it might be best to keep each month's awkward incidents down to a number countable on one hand.

All this rumination had occupied only that frozen second, after which the judge managed to rearrange his face into something resembling a smile and replied, "Kidnapping? Uh . . . no. Nothing like that. I think one of your patrons might have taken ill—had to leave in a hurry."

The director's gaze swept up and down the street. Hardcastle saw nothing untoward except for a couple of smears of rubber near the corner—what a guy gets for choosing a sidekick named "Skid"—and the art gallery director probably didn't even notice that. The man's worried demeanor had settled into something more suited to an ordinary opening day of an exhibit. He nodded sharply and turned to leave.

Left alone again, Hardcastle rocked back on his heels, pondering the black streaks going into that first turn. Enough minutes had passed that if McCormick had lost his quarry at the start, he'd probably be back already. Somehow he had no doubt that the kid would do that. He actually didn't have much trouble figuring out McCormick's behavior in general, a fact that occasionally concerned him on account of he suspected the reason—that Mark often did the very thing he himself would do, acting on first impulse.

He heaved a long sigh and took one hand out of his jacket pocket. A cab pulled up to the curb, responding to his reluctant wave. There was no point standing around here anymore. For one thing, if McCormick did get picked up by the cops, the next thing would be a call placed to the estate—possibly the only phone call the kid would be allowed, and a really excellent chance to say "I told you so". He had no intention of missing that.

00000

He got up from his desk and stalked out on to the front steps one more time. The cab ride home had eaten up a half hour and nearly ten dollars, including tip. What he hadn't counted on was the additional hour that had been passing slowly since then—an hour and three-quarters, total elapsed time, since Tina Gray's alarming departure from the art gallery.

Though he wasn't entirely sure it had been a crime, or even that Ms. Gray would have desired the involvement of the authorities, he increasingly regretted not having responded to his initial impulse to dial 911. It wasn't much out of concern for Gray. He figured she'd been swimming with the sharks for a long time and must know how to avoid getting bit. It was McCormick who mostly occupied his worried thoughts.

He'd been doing the math—just how far the Coyote could go in a hundred and five minutes, given a likely casual disregard for posted limits. Of course it wasn't the chase that worried him as much as what might have happened if McCormick finally caught up with that heavily-muscled bunch.

_There was a gun in the Coyote_.

In the glove compartment—he remembered stowing it there before they'd arrived at the gallery. McCormick saw him doing it. The recollection gave him a mixture of relief and new concern. If Mark needed it, it was there, but if he used it, it was yet another wrinkle in their parole arrangement. He shook his head, took one last look at the empty drive, and stepped back into the house, closing the door behind him. He was at his desk a moment later, and a moment after that had the phone pulled over toward him and was dialing a familiar number.

"Hey, Stanton," he said grumpily to the lieutenant's crisply official hello, "it's me, Hardcastle."

He got a pleasantry back, but sensed the other guy was busy. This was where it got tricky. If Stanton wasn't in the mood to chew the fat, there weren't many options short of admitting what had happened straight out.

Hardcastle felt his resolve wavering and then backing down. After all, if something significant had happened involving McCormick, word would've worked its way back to the lieutenant fairly quickly. He knew there were plenty of people waiting for the kid to take a fall; some of them even had money riding on it.

There were no such announcements from Stanton, no unfortunate "I was just about to call you." Hardcastle chose to take this as a sign. He stifled a possibly premature sigh of relief. It wasn't time to sic the hounds on McCormick just yet. But then he needed to come up with a reason for the phone call.

"I might be down there later on." He hoped that wasn't a self-fulfilling prophecy of a different sort. "I've been looking into something—a doxy named Tina Gray, you ever run across her?"

There was a chuckle from Stanton's end. "_I don't think we call 'em 'doxies' anymore, Milt, but, no, doesn't ring any bells._"

"Yeah, well, you can call me old-fashioned, but I don't think you can get me on slander," Hardcastle grumbled casually. "Anyway, I've got McCormick out sniffing around on it."

There was a telling silence from the receiver and then Stanton's inquiry. "_By himself?_"

"Yeah," Hardcastle's shrug was in his voice, "thought it was about time I let the leash out a little. He did some good work on that Cadillac thing, didn't he?"

"_You mean Joe, or his car?_" Stanton replied dryly.

"You know what I mean. Listen, I just wanted to know if you'd be in the office later on, that's all."

"_Sure, Milt, any time after lunch, not that I'm gonna have time for lunch, the way this morning's going._"

It was a pointed enough comment and Hardcastle took the hint. The good-byes were short but he hung up with a sense of accomplishment. Stanton could now back him up with a statement that Mark had been officially unofficially working on the Tina Gray situation before lunchtime today. That should put to rest any accusations of Hardcastle pulling an after-the-fact deputization to cover up some parole-violating shenanigans.

_Has it already come to that_? He pondered on it for a moment. Did people think his judgment was impaired regarding the kid--well, more than they'd thought right from the beginning, taking in another ex-con, even if only to keep the hedges trimmed? It wasn't, of course. He thought he knew McCormick pretty well. It'd been an intense month-and-a-half and the kid had come through every time. He smiled grimly. _We just gotta get this impulse thing under control._

_If we get a chance._ He checked his watch again. Nearly two hours. Worry crept back, carefully couched in an ever-denser cloud of anger. A low rumble of thunder could be heard on the edge of that storm.

No, it was the bass note of the Coyote's engine, already as familiar to him as a friend's voice and always audible from well out by the gate. He beat down the feeling of relief as he hustled to his feet and stomped out to the front steps again.

The car was in one piece, and its driver, climbing out with an air of careless insouciance, also looked none the worse for wear. Worry exited, stage left, and the thunderclouds coalesced into one helluva storm.

At least he thought it was. McCormick's only response was to turn and reach back into the car for something, Old Henry, and he snatched it off the front seat with the clear implication that it had been both needed and used.

Mark turned and trudged up the steps next to him, looking underwhelmed by the sudden storm, which continued unabated and now expanded to include some choice remarks about handgun usage and the increased cost of living. The judge was vaguely aware that he'd descended into a rant.

McCormick seemed aware of it, too. He finally joined the conversation, somewhere in the middle of the third verse. It was a spirited defense based on the basketball game precedent and bolstered by the ends justifying the means—though Hardcastle couldn't see that there were many ends to do the justifying with. What was apparent was that the kid was besotted.

In the midst of that the judge couldn't help but poke a needle in the kid's balloon. He'd been lucky to walk away from the encounter in one piece, and in the face of that cold hard fact, all his unbounded self-confidence was scary as hell. Hardcastle made a sound summary of just how scary the last two hours had been.

"Wait a minute, Judge," McCormick had pulled himself out of a lounging reverie and turned partway around in the chair, "are you telling me you _care_ about me?" It was nothing less than delighted astonishment—but it held the edge of a dare to it.

"_No_, I don't care about you," Hardcastle shot down that balloon as well. He didn't, did he? And he was most certainly in no mood to admit it, anyway. He found himself softening that with a little more rant of the variety that surely the kid would recognize for what it was.

He did, it seemed; at any rate he smiled, and even forked over his one concrete contribution to the furthering of the Tina Gray project: the license plate from the limo he'd gone in pursuit of. There was that, and a description of Gray's latest flame—undoubtedly another mob boss, from _modus operandi_ alone. Hardcastle grudged his approval.

The besotment, though, he could do nothing about, except maybe take McCormick along on the trip to Stanton's office—show him the cold hard facts of life, not that those ever seemed to exercise any moderating influence on his natural exuberance.

And he was gonna make _him_ clean the gun tonight.


End file.
